


Instinct

by NoirSongbird



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha instincts, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Breeding Kink, F/M, Knotting, Mentioned Symmenji, mentioned Anahardt, mentioned Emily/Lena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:20:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9603740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: Overwatch has successfully operated for decades, from one Omnic crisis to the next, and Jack Morrison has been its head through the entire thing. However, with a transition to peacetime, he finds his Alpha instinct to start a family going into overdrive - and his best friend Gabriel thinks he knows just the woman to settle Jack's raging hormones.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is another commissioned fic by my lovely anon commissioner, who truly brings me the best prompts. Please enjoy!

For an old soldier, Jack was coming to learn, peacetime was a special sort of hell.

He’d never really thought of it that way, not back when he was fighting, when it had been the only thing he really wanted, because war, too, was hell. Peacetime was  _ peacetime,  _ it was supposed to mean a chance to rest. A chance to settle into the life war robbed you of - to have a quiet life with all the comforts of a family, without the constant, creeping fear that family would be taken from you by the capricious whims of a violent world. 

And sure, for everyone else, it damned well seemed to. Half of Overwatch, he figured, was hooking up and starting families and settling into the happy life of people with their whole lives ahead of them left, right and center, and god _ damn  _ was it  _ frustrating  _ to watch.

Jack was an Alpha. Jack was the Strike-Commander of Overwatch, and even well into his fifties, he figured he cut an impressive figure. He wasn’t _unappealing_ by any means, surely - so why was it that it felt like he was the only one without a mate? Why was it that he couldn’t find an Omega to settle down with? His instincts were _screeching_ at him to find someone, anyone at all, so that he could start having a family and settling down.

(Wasn’t it Omegas who were supposed to deal with this biological clock bullshit? No, apparently, he got to have that too, and God was it leaving him pissed right the fuck off.)

It had been easier, back when he’d been a thousand different kinds of busy and when he was on suppressants, which had worked miracles for evening out his temper and his hormones. 

Before, during the Omnic Crises, he’d had other things to throw his energy into, but those were...starting to run out. They’d been running out for a while as the world came down from the Crisis and settled into something much more peaceful than Jack had ever suspected was possible. Amazing, what coming to the edge of annihilation twice in under a half-century would do for people’s willingness to get along. Overwatch still had work to do - there was always unrest, everywhere, because that too was human nature - but not nearly as much as they’d been doing during or even between the Crises. 

Frankly, he was expecting to hear that Overwatch had been knocked back to reserve duty practically any day, and he blamed  _ that  _ for his stress, even if everyone around him seemed all too happy with the prospect. 

And why shouldn't they be? It had been a long, hard fight, twice over, but the God Programs were gone. For good, this time, as best as Jack understood. Dismantled and pulled apart at their most basic coding level with the help of some brilliant hacker Gabe had recruited into Blackwatch. The remaining omniums would never go rogue again, and the omnic population could live without fear of suddenly being hijacked by a terrifying, angry AI with a grudge against humanity. They’d done a good thing. They’d done a hundred thousand good things for going on thirty years, and Jack knew a lot of the people he worked with were tired and just wanted the opportunity to settle down and live their lives. Hell, he did, deep down, it was just that the approach of peacetime was ar eminder that outside being Strike-Commander, he didn’t…have much. It had been his entire life for  _ most of  _ his life, and it was an uncomfortable thing to realize that he didn’t exactly have anything to fall back on once he was no longer Strike-Commander.   
  
He didn’t want to begrudge his friends and comrades their happiness. He really, really did not. 

It was just that it seemed to be happening for _everyone around him_ , and not for _him._

He couldn’t fault Ana and Reinhardt, not really. They’d fallen head over heels for each other practically when they’d met - the two of them had been a couple for decades now, practically parenting every agent that came through Overwatch besides raising their own daughter. He’d gotten used to having them around a long time ago, and he was pretty sure they were just ready to retire. Well, Ana was. Reinhardt...possibly not so much; he was pretty sure that Reinhardt would keep on doing the hero thing long after he was off Overwatch’s roster, that was just the sort of man he was.

They were definitely getting more affectionate in their old age, though, and watching the two of them happily cuddled up between missions or acting like obnoxious newlyweds on their downtime made a flare of jealousy crawl up his spine every damn time, without fail. It was ridiculous. They were adults, there was no reason for them to be... _ like that. _

He could’ve handled them, though, he really could have. They’d been like this for years - decades, even - and he was used to them. It was  _ everyone else  _ driving him up the wall. 

Hearing all about Lena Oxton’s Perfect Gorgeous Redheaded Alpha who was a civil engineer and absolutely brilliant and helping with the recovery efforts and who hadn’t considered the Accelerator a dealbreaker had been kind of charming the first time. Oxton had had a rough time since the Slipstream accident; she deserved some happiness in her life, and this Emily girl brought it. Jack had even met her, once or twice, and given her the sort-of-Dad seal of approval. Really, he wanted to be happy for the two of them and their nice little London apartment and their dorky Christmas scarves and their pup on the way. He did. 

He  _ couldn’t.  _ Their happiness was a blatant reminder of what he was missing, and it made him agonizingly envious of everything they had, and moreso that Lena was lucky enough to settle down with someone off the front lines. They’d be able to retire together and raise a family and they’d have the obnoxious fairy tale ending that made Jack more than a little sick.

He could have avoided them, though, just like he could deal with Ana and Reinhardt. Lena was on maternity leave, even if she did sometimes show up at social events, and it was easy enough then to only talk to her for a little while while everyone else cooed over her. 

What he could  _ not  _ avoid nor deal with or brush aside was Gabriel and Mei. 

Gabriel and Mei were the most  _ disgustingly happy  _ couple he had ever met in his  _ life.  _ Worse, he had to be around Gabriel all the time, because they ran the damn show together, him as head of Overwatch and Gabe as head of Blackwatch, their covert operations unit, and, yeah, alright, Gabriel was his best friend, and that meant a lot to him. He might even have been able to force himself to deal with it, because Gabe was, again, his best friend, and they’d built this organization from the ground up together and they were the last survivors of the Soldier Enhancement Program and all of that, except that half of what Gabe had to talk about, besides work, was his  _ mate  _ and their  _ pups _ and how  _ precious  _ his girls were and ---

It made Jack physically ill. And also very, very frustrated. He wanted to be happy for Gabe, really he did. But it was  _ hard _ when bitter Alpha jealousy reared its head at every opportunity. Worse, Gabriel and Mei were everything a good couple in a line of work like Overwatch’s  _ should  _ be. They were deadly synchronized on the battlefield, Mei’s ice and Gabriel’s shotguns carving through anyone who dared stand in their way. There were  _ stories  _ about the two of them in the criminal underground, if the intel Jack got was correct, stories about the two of them tearing up entire terror cells by themselves or with minimal backup. 

Jack hadn’t expected someone who’d started in Overwatch’s climatology division to be such a damn good black ops agent, but she’d moved into Blackwatch after the incident in Antarctica that had left her the only survivor of a six-man team, and there hadn’t been a single reason to complain about her performance. Pointing her and Gabriel at a problem was like sending in an entire unit, except much more efficient and much more thorough. It was a little terrifying to fight  _ beside  _ them - listening to them laugh and joke and flirt in between kills was a hell of a thing. 

Basically, if it absolutely, positively, had to be completely cleared out and under Overwatch control by breakfast, you sent Gabriel and Mei after dinner and waited to hear back.

If Jack was being entirely up-front, what they had was  _ exactly  _ what he wanted. Their easy banter, their perfectly synchronized ability to back each other up in a fight, their obvious devotion to and affection for each other. It was the kind of relationship anyone would be lucky to have; they had achieved it absolutely effortlessly, and that drove Jack up the  _ fucking wall  _ because how the hell was it fair that they had it dumped in their lap so easily and he was left alone?

He shouldn’t be this old and unmated, frankly. Jack knew it was a stupid thing to worry about, but it  was a thing he  _ was  _ worried about. Angela had just added fuel to the fire when she’d insisted on taking him off suppressants; she’d made faces and asked how long he’d been taking them, and when he told her, she’d insisted he stop.

“It can have unpredictable effects,” she’d said, and if that didn’t sound ominous as hell. So he’d stopped, because he really didn’t want to know what Angela meant by “unpredictable effects.” That sounded like the sort of thing that was polite doctor speak for “something incredibly horrible and probably painful.”

He hadn’t dealt with a proper rut in years, and when his first one hit, it hit like a  _ truck,  _ but there was no one he could properly satisfy it with. It was humiliating for a man of his stature to be reduced to one-night stands with whatever pretty Omega woman he could pick up in a bar that was willing to go home with him. It left him gritting his teeth in frustration, and the longer it went on, the worse things got. He was losing sleep, which only contributed to his fraying temper and his utter intolerance for anything cute and happy and even vaguely child-related.

Sometimes, he wanted to go back on the damn things, because he didn’t actually  _ enjoy  _ snapping at people left and right. He didn’t  _ like  _ wanting to scream every time he so much as noticed two people leaning intimately close out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t fond of barely being able to be around his best friend’s kids, or his subordinate’s, never mind the playdates Genji and Satya, another mated couple that had found each other through Overwatch, arranged with Gabriel and Mei. Those made him want to punch a wall just thinking about them, because it was  _ fucking unfair. _

He should have all of that. He should have a mate and a child or two and a happy home life to look forward to returning to when he left the office. He should be carrying baby pictures in his wallet, and showing them to everyone who would hold still long enough to look, just like Gabriel did with his girls. He should be sending his kid off to playdates with everyone else’s, and laughing as his mate helped him wrangle their son - he wanted a boy  _ so badly.  _ All of that was the perfect domestic dream, and it was so incredibly unfair that he wasn’t allowed to have it. 

He should be able to be  _ happy,  _ not stewing in his bitterness and loneliness and desperately fighting his instinct to jump to full-blown rage every time he saw even the slightest sign of someone else experiencing the joy he so desperately wanted.

And yet there he was, sitting in the mess and only half-paying attention to what was going on around him because he was pretty sure that if he  _ did  _ start really listening he’d want to smack someone, when Genji Shimada had to start running his goddamn mouth and drew his attention and his ire. 

“Gabriel,” he opened, “do you want to see about getting the kids together again this weekend?” Jack immediately glared down at his plate, hoping he could go back to tuning it out. This was exactly the sort of discussion he really, really wanted to avoid being in the middle of. As soon as kids were even close to the topic, Jack wanted to smack everyone talking about them.su Rely they didn’t have to do this whern he was  _ right there.  _ They could have  _ waited  _ to have this conversation somewhere Jack  _ wasn’t,  _ and he could have been spared listening to the whole thing. 

He didn’t  _ dislike  _ Genji, or his mate, Satya, a former Vishkar architech with a clever tongue and an unmatched eye for detail. She was one of the leaders of the restoration efforts Overwatch was aiding in, and she was generally someone he was proud to have on Overwatch’s roster. Genji, too, was an asset, trained as an assassin and cybernetically enhanced after much of his body was destroyed - though apparently he was still Alpha enough to breed an Omega. He liked both of them just fine, individually. What he  _ didn’t like  _ was that they were in such perfect goddamn domestic bliss with their precious triplets who were growing like weeds and getting, according to Genji, cuter practically by the day. 

Genji happened to be one of Gabriel’s favorite infiltration agents, he reminded himself, and also Angela’s pet project, and it would be unproductive for him to punch the kid because both of them would probably try to fight his corpse once Satya was finished with him. 

“I’m sure we can set something up,” Gabriel said, nonchalantly, though Jack could feel his friend’s eyes on him. Genji seemed totally oblivious - or, alternately, he was just Genji, because even though he’d taken an authorized sabbatical to “find himself” when his behavior had become more erratic and destructive than helpful, and had returned with his brother and an Omnic monk in tow, more at peace with himself than he’d ever been before, he was still the same little shit underneath it all that he had always been. No respect for anyone or anything, except maybe his mate, who could silence him with a look. Jack glanced over at her. She did not seem to be applying The Look, presumably because she did not actually realize that there was any reason to; instead she was eating her lunch as delicately as possible and also obviously leaning into the conversation between Genji and Gabriel. 

“Good,” Satya said once she finished her bite, always the epitome of perfect politeness, “these sorts of early childhood activities are beneficial for their development.” She looked excited, even, and why shouldn’t she be? She had three beautiful children who were already making friends they’d probably have for the rest of their life, and she got to watch them grow up and enjoy that. It would be stranger for her to be something  _ other _ than happy _. _

This was, Jack decided, his own personal Hell. He’d never asked for any of this, he’d never asked to hear constantly about other people’s kids and how goddamn disgustingly happy they were in their disgustingly happy relationships; he didn’t  _ want  _ to hear about other people’s kids and how goddamn disgustingly happy they were in their disgustingly happy relationships. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair, if you asked him, and he never should have had to put up with it.

He hadn’t realized he was growling into his food until Gabriel kicked him under the table - a subtle but effective gesture that drew his attention to exactly how ridiculous he was being. It made him wince, slightly; he was, he knew, being fairly absurd, and no matter how much his Alpha instincts were raging, that didn’t mean he could stomp around in public and deny other people their right to be happy.

“Something you want to say, Strike-Commander?” Genji asked, aggressively sunnily, which was clearly both provocation and indication that he knew  _ exactly  _ what he was doing, bringing up this conversation around Jack.

Jack took back everything he’d thought about his attitude being unfair and added on an addendum to the list of bitter thoughts: he’d  _ really  _ like to punch Genji Shimada in the smug face, and see if he’d be grinning  _ then. _ He reminded himself of exactly the reasons he’d dismissed it as a possibility before, took a deep breath, and pushed the thought aside for the moment. Maybe he’d get Shimada into the sparring ring with him later, and take out all his anger and bitterness at everyone’s happy families  _ there. _

“No,” he said, sharply, and he returned to his food. He didn’t have to look to know Genji was rolling his eyes. Disrespectful little shit.

“C’mon, Jack,” Gabriel said, a little abruptly, “let’s go hit the sparring ring. You look like you’ve got some aggression to work out.” 

Jack wanted to protest, to argue that he was  _ fine,  _ but Gabriel practically hauled him away from the table, and alright, he  _ did  _ have some shit he needed to sort through. It wasn’t punching Genji, which was what he  _ wanted  _ to do, but Gabriel’s damned ridiculous joy was getting to him just as much, and so he would, quite frankly, do perfectly well as a substitute, or so Jack felt.

 

* * *

Not even the sparring ring gave Jack much of an escape from the problem, though. It had been going just fine at first, the two of them trading blows on pretty even ground the way they always did, which was just enough challenge to really get Jack into it, but it got derailed right as he was falling into a comfortable rhythm.

He wanted to scream when Mei walked through the door right as they were really getting into it, and although she didn’t ask them to stop - in fact, she cheered Gabriel on the entire time with rather a lot of enthusiasm and encouraged them on - just her presence was a grating reminder of what he didn’t have. There was no Omega on the sidelines encouraging  _ him  _ to hit harder, and that was all he wanted, really; he wanted someone there to be his partner in everything on and off the battlefield, which was exactly what gabriel and Mei had so very, very easily. That wasn’t so much to ask, was it? 

Jack got Gabriel into a pin long enough for him to tap out (though a small part of Jack suspected Gabriel could have easily broken his hold and was just throwing the fight, which only made him angrier) and then Gabriel slipped out of the ring and over to his Omega, drawing her in for a brief kiss. He had to bend down to kiss her, and she stood up on her toes; it would have been an adorable sight if it hadn’t made Jack want to either throw up or punch something. Preferably Gabriel, a little more, because goddamnit Gabriel knew  _ exactly why  _ he was so damn angry all the time, he was pretty sure, and he was clearly just  _ rubbing it in,  _ with this stupid fucking public display of affection for his Omega. 

“Did you need something,  _ querida?” _ Gabriel asked, and Jack rolled his eyes as Mei giggled.  _ Ridiculous. _

“Just some after-action reports from the last field team,” she said, “I ran into Jesse bringing them by your office and told him I’d deliver them to you. Hello, Jack!” She was ever-cheerful off the battlefield; it meant that she and Gabriel “Resting Murder Face” Reyes made a hell of a pair to anyone not acquainted with them.

“Hey, Mei,” he said, slightly grudgingly. There wasn’t much of a  _ reason _ to be rude to her, even if he sort of wanted there to be. “I’m gonna hit the showers.”

“See you later,” Gabriel waved, almost absently. It was  _ ridiculous  _ how distracted those two got when they were in the same room. Honestly, Jack didn’t think he was being unfair having little patience with them - surely even other people in a relationship could look at their absurd sappiness and want to never see it again.

He stormed off for the showers without giving them so much as another look.

He swore he could still hear giggles even with the water turned all the way up.

 

* * *

 

It all came to a head at a casual picnic in a park not far from Zurich HQ. it was meant to be a break, for all of them, a chance to enjoy the warm summer air and take in the sights and generally have a good time. Jack was pretty okay with that, as a possibility; it sounded like a good way to spend a day. The park itself was gorgeous, and the spot they’d gotten was just by a massive lake, great for splashing around in and sitting by to enjoy the potluck food everyone had contributed to. It was a wildly multicultural event, as every Overwatch group meal was - he could work his way through a pulled pork sandwich and have samosas on the side and mochi for dessert, because everyone brought a little bit of something.

He hadn’t counted on the fact that  _ everyone  _ was going to be there.  _ Everyone,  _ which meant Lena, Emily, Genji, Satya, Mei, Gabriel,  _ the kids,  _ the entire goddamn shebang. 

It made him want to scream, as soon as he realized it, but damn it, no, he was going to push forward and have a nice afternoon with his friends and comrades. 

He could do that. He could keep all this raging Alpha bullshit in check, and have a nice afternoon with people he was fond of, and that would be that. He didn’t have to be constantly on edge, didn’t have to be growling at everything that moved and everything that even  _ kind of  _ looked like happiness.

He really wanted to believe that was something he could do for one solid goddamn day, but the longer the day went on, the less sure of that he was. It was hard, watching everyone around him have exactly the happiness that he desperately wanted for himself.

On top of that, it was fucking  _ springtime.  _ Exactly the worst time, he was rapidly discovering, for a raging Alpha to be out in public, because all around him were baby animals  _ and  _ baby people. Lena and Emily had even brought their new kitten, who was an object of endless fascination for the children and an object of endless ire for Jack. Sure, she was absolutely adorable, if you liked kittens - which, Jack was pretty damned certain, he no longer did - but she was also  _ a kitten.  _ A child, even if she was an animal.

More fuel, really, for his bitter, angry fire.

He tried to ignore them at first. He really did. It wasn’t easy - kids were good at demanding attention, and no matter how little patience he might have for them, every single goddamn kid in Overwatch seemed  _ inordinately fond  _ of “Uncle Jack.” He didn’t get it, at all, because he knew he only got surlier when they were around, but the damned brats seemed to find him entertaining no matter what he did. Especially since, much like “Uncle Reinhardt,” he was very much capable of carrying them and swinging them around the way kids seemed to  _ love.  _

Elisa, one of Gabriel and Mei’s, put a hand on his leg to get his attention.

“You okay, Uncle Jack?” She asked, all wide eyes and sweetness. “You look sad.”

“I’m fine,” he said, a little less gruffly than he might have told anyone else, because yeah, he was stewing, and yeah, her very existence was kind of infuriating to him, but she was just a kid. A really cute, sweet kid who’d gone out of her way to check on him, because he was sitting by himself and suling at a group event. None of that was  _ her  _ fault, not directly. “Go check on Uncle Reinhardt, I’d bet he and Aunt Ana have something for you.” Both of them were great about having treats for the kids, and about being distractions, and it showed. The little girl lit up at the suggestion and toddled off, and Jack went back to staring at his sandwich in bitter silence, occasionally taking a bite.

He could hear birds chirping close by, and when he glanced up, he spotted a nest,  which made him growl bitterly. Fucking birds, with their loud cheeping and obvious family. It was  _ ridiculous  _ and  _ completely fucking unfair;  _ he shouldn’t have to deal with  _ any  _ of this, and here he was, dealing with  _ all of it.  _ The entire park, if you asked Jack, was conspiring to make his life harder. He could see no less than four families of water birds - swans, ducks, possibly even some geese, because the universe was making its point very loudly.

He considered the fact that the swans decided, right then, that it would be a great idea to take to the land and harass him to be absolute proof positive of his theory. He hated swans  _ anyway,  _ but one toddling over from the lake followed by its entire goddamn bird  _ family  _ was just too much. He stood up and starting backing away, but they were a determined collection of feather assholes. The lead swan got close enough to peck at his sandwich, and Jack let out a low growl, as the little cygnets circled around their - mother? Father? He wasn’t really sure - and peeped loudly, demanding food. That would explain, he supposed, why the bird was so boldly approaching a person; for most of the day they’d stayed away, content, he supposed, to just watch the collection of humans milling about. 

The bird leaned forward again, and this time, Jack pulled off his boot and tossed it with a shout. It landed hard, not actually hitting the birds but coming close enough, and it sent the whole little happy bird family scattering, running back for the water, which was damned well satisfying for him. There was a long moment of silence, and he could feel a whole hell of a lot of concerned eyes on him, but he didn’t care. It was  _ cathartic  _ to get to take all this rage out on someone, even if it was just a bunch of annoying goddamn birds.

Until he heard the laughter.

He turned his head slowly, and there was Hana “D.Va” Song, brilliant soldier and celebrity, holding up her phone and leaning on Lucio because she was apparently laughing too hard to keep herself upright. It took him about two seconds to realize what was happening, and when he put it together, he was  _ pissed.  _

“Hey!” Jack demanded, sharp and angry, storming for the pair of them. “You delete that video, damn it, don’t you even  _ think  _ about keeping it.” 

“You’ll have to make me!” Hana singsonged, and then she took off, waving the offending device in the air. Lucio took off with her, and Jack went after them.

Fucking _ kids.  _ Why was it he wanted them again?

 

* * *

 

By that evening, the video of Jack losing his temper, lovingly recorded and posted online by Hana, who hadn’t been able to stop laughing through the entire incident even when Jack was chasing her down to try and recover her phone, was nearing a million hits and counting. Gabriel thought that was the best part of the whole thing; Jack vehemently disagreed.

Mostly, he just wanted to crawl under his desk and pretend the entire thing never happened.  _ Unfortunately,  _ the Internet was, as it always had been, forever.

 

* * *

 

“You know,” Mei broached, “you really ought to talk to him.”

Gabriel let out a long sigh. He didn’t need her to elaborate - there was no question about which “him” she might mean. Mei had been nudging him for a long time about the problem that was Jack Morrison and his raging Alpha instincts, and even Gabriel had to admit that after the incident in the park, the whole thing probably  _ was  _ reaching critical mass. That was damned unfortunate, because the last thing he wanted to do was have to argue with his best friend about the man’s Alpha instincts getting  _ way  _ away from him. 

“Should I?” He asked, looking mildly skeptical. “Because the way he’s been, I don’t think  _ anyone _ really  _ should  _ talk to him.” Mei huffed, giving Gabriel a long stare. 

“The display in the park was out of character even for him, and you know it; it was an indication that Jack is doing much worse than any of us realized.” She said firmly.

Alright, Gabriel was willing to acknowledge that was entirely true. Jack’s behavior had been getting much worse, and it sort of was starting to worry him. 

“Yeah,” Gabriel acknowledged, “I know. I know it wasn’t right - Jack’s always been a hardass, but yelling at  _ birds  _ is a little much, even for him.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m glad I found you, if that’s how us SEP grads get when we get older.” It was a hell of a thing, really - Gabriel had gone off suppressants after he found Mei, and his first rut after that had hit him like a truck. 

“I imagine that’s not the only reason you’re glad you met me,” Mei said, sounding almost scandalized. Gabriel almost laughed, because he recognized that tone, it was the one she only took when she was being as dramatic as possible with him.

“Of course it isn’t,” Gabriel said, and he beckoned her over. She climbed into his lap and sighed, a fond little noise that had him smiling broadly as he leaned in to start drawing her into little kisses. “Let me show you some of the other reasons.”

He’d intended to, too - he could have easily carried her from the kitchen into their bedroom to have a nice afternoon, and he’d been pretty damn sure the kids were well and occupied and wouldn’t need their attention for a little while - but one of the downsides to having kids, especially multiple kids, was that kids regularly had their own ideas of how their parents ought to spend their free time.

“Mamaaa! Papaaaa!” Their oldest, Xiulan, came running into the room, dark pigtails obviously streaked with brightly-colored paint. “Come paint with Elisa and me!” She demanded, bright and excited. Gabriel burst into laughter, and so did Mei, and he snuck one last kiss before they began to move apart, which had Xiu wrinkling her nose.

“Alright, we’re coming,” Mei said, climbing out of his lap and following their very excited daughter. Gabriel took a long moment to watch them with a fond smile on his face before he got up to go after them, a moment to take in his family and think about how lucky he’d gotten . Yeah, this was exactly what he’d always wanted - and, really, he ought to give his best friend the chance to have it too.

 

* * *

 

An unexpected office visit from Gabriel wasn’t exactly unusual, but the somber expression the man wore as he pushed the door open definitely  _ was.  _ Jack frowned, setting aside the paperwork he’d been focusing his energy on, and waited to hear some kind of utterly terrible news. 

“Yes?” He asked, when for a moment Gabriel didn’t say anything. The Blackwatch commander sighed, and dropped himself into one of the chairs Jack kept for visitors, scooting it closer to Jack’s desk and then dropping one elbow on the desktop and leaning in.

“We need to talk,” Gabriel said, “about how goddamn ridiculous you’re being.” That immediately sent Jack’s hackles up, though at least it wasn’t the terrible news he’d been preparing himself for.

“I am not being  _ goddamn ridiculous, _ ” Jack protested, “everyone  _ around me  _ is being goddamn ridiculous.” That seemed perfectly reasonable to him. If everyone else would just...just stop  _ flaunting all that goddamn  happiness around,  _ he would be able to go back to doing his job with no problems and no questions. He’d be able to stop worrying about how empty his life was outside of Overwatch, and how utterly alone he was when it came to anything other than his work as Strike-Commander. Sure, his clock would keeptickin g and his instincts would keep roaring at him to find someone, anyone, but he could  _ ignore it  _ if it wasn’t constantly being shoved in his  _ face. _

“You lost it on a bunch of  _ swans.”  _ Gabriel said, which Jack had to concede was an eminently, alarmingly reasonable point. He  _ had  _ lost it on a bunch of birds, in public, and that was more than a little bit absurd. “Number one, you’re lucky you’re not dead, swans are vicious and murderous. Number two, what the fuck, man.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Jack protested gruffly. It wa something of an empty protest, if he were being wholly honest. He knew he was being over the top and dramatic, and he knew he needed a healthier outlet for the absolute storm of hormones that was raging inside him, but it was much easier to just be  _ angry.  _

“Yeah, it is,” Gabriel said simply. “You’re lashing out at everyone around you, and you’re making it absolute hell to work with you. You’ve gotta figure out what the problem is and fix it, or you’re gonna find yourself in a lot more trouble than you’re in now.”

“You wouldn't understand,” Jack said, more than a little petulantly. Truth be told, if there was anyone who  _ might  _ get it, it was probably Gabriel.

“Try me,” Gabriel said, in a tone that indicated he believed he was displaying utterly immeasurable patience. 

Jack thought about it for a very long, very tense moment. He wasn’t sure he wanted to just...accept help like this, to open up about the issue, to let someone else see how badly all of this was affecting him.

“It’s the Alpha instincts, I guess,” Jack admitted. “Angela took me off suppressants a while back, said it was playing havoc with my system and I needed to quit, but  _ not  _ being on them’s doing a whole other kind of havoc.”

“Have you talked to her about it?” Gabriel asked. Jack shook his head.

“Seemed like a stupid thing to bring to her, when I know exactly what the problem is and I know she’s right that I need to be off suppressants.” He explained. “And being off  _ has  _ helped in other ways, if we ignore the whole...anger. Thing.”

“I kind of know what you mean,” Gabriel admitted. “Angela took me off them about the same time as you, I’m guessing, just...I got lucky. I had Mei. My first rut hit me like a fucking  _ truck,  _ it’s why we had to take that solid week off a while back.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess between the SEP and having been on suppressants so long...the Alpha goes wild when it’s finally unleashed.”

“So you got marathon sex and I got to be a cranky, bitter old man. Fucking typical, Reyes,” Jack grumbled. Gabriel burst out laughing, and then shook his head.

“See, so, the solution is that we’ve gotta find you an nice Omega, get this shitallsmo  othed over.” He said.

“You think I haven’t been looking?” Jack asked. “I know that's’ exactly what I need, there just aren’t exactly many Omegas that are my  _ type.” _

Gabriel sat back and considered for a very, very long moment.

“How about this,” he began. “I’ve got a friend. I’ve got...lots of friends, in all kinds of shady business, but I know this one Omega who I’d think would be right up your alley. Beautiful, smart, can pop a man in the apricot with no hesitation at two kilometers. I’ll see if she’s interested in a blind date.”

“Are you  _ joking,”  _ Jack demanded. Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” He asked. “You’ve got to deal with this, and the best way to do that is to find you a nice Omega who’ll tolerate your shit so your hormones will settle the fuck down.” He shrugged. “Makes perfect sense to me.”

The thing was, it  _ did  _ make perfect sense, and that was what was grating on Jack’s nerves. He didn’t want to believe it was that easy - that he just hadn’t looked in the right direction, and that, apparently, there was some mercenary contact of Gabriel’s who was, if she was anything like she was described, apparently exactly what he needed in a partner. Apparently all he’d needed to do was  _ talk to someone,  _ or talk to the  _ right  _ someone. 

Still, hell, maybe it could be that easy. Maybe he could be  _ done  _ with all of this; the rage, the hormones, the whole fucking mess, and he could be around other happy people and not feel like he wanted to rip someone’s face off. 

“Who’s she with?” Jack asked, because Gabriel’s shady contacts ranged far and wide and he wanted to make sure this wasn’t  _ too far _ underground.

“Talon. The merc group? They’ve backed up Blackwatch ops before, and I’ve had her as sniper cover personally. She’s great, Jack, I promise. Exactly what you like. Exactly what you  _ need.” _

“How come you never made a move, then?” Jack asked, a little snarkily.

“Because my type’s more cute, chubby scientist than terrifying femme fatale?” Gabriel shot back. “But I’m pretty sure ‘hot and also capable of killing you’ is exactly  _ your  _ type, I’ve seen the girls you make eyes at.”

Gabriel did have him there, that  _ was  _ exactly his type.

“Sure,” Jack said, after a long, considering pause. “Set us up. It can’t possibly be worse than what I’ve been doing.” And there was the truth of the matter. He’d been stewing in his bitter pit of hormones, and he hated it. So maybe this really  _ was  _ the solution.

“Good,” Gabriel stood up, a broad grin on his face. “I’ll get everything set up. You just worry about impressing the girl.”

 

* * *

 

Jack had dithered for hours. He was, really, entirely confident that he didn’t  _ need this,  _ or so he kept telling himself now, when he was pretty well completely committed _.  _ He didn’t  _ need  _ Gabriel to find a date for him; he didn’t  _ need  _ a blind date with one of his old friend’s mercenary contacts in order to find the perfect woman. He could do that  _ on his own,  _ and getting set up on a blind date was just….ridiculous. Foolish. Childish. It was something for the man he’d been when he’d first become Strike-Commander, young and proud, not for a mature man of his years.

Even if nothing else had worked, and this was, basically, his last, best, most reasonable option.

So, then, the truth of the matter was that no matter how much he wanted to  _ not  _ need this, he probably actually did, and so he sighed and accepted the invitation and got dressed up in a nice suit and actually took the time, because he was a little desperate and a lot hopeful, to make a nest in his bedroom that he could happily toss an omega into. He’d grabbed as many blankets and pillows as he could find around his apartment and shoved them onto the bed, arranging them so they looked comfortable and inviting. It wasn’t much, at first, because he wasn’t exactly a “pillows and blankets” sort of guy, but he made a quick stop by a home goods store and bought about half a dozen more pillows and three more blankets, and he hoped the whole thing looked soft and comfortable and inviting enough to fuck in.

If it even got that far. He wasn’t certain it would; he’d yet to meet an Omega who lived up to his expectations. They weren’t, in his opinion, even that  _ high;  _ he just wanted a woman who could keep up with him, and those seemed to be few and far between.

Still, this was someone Gabriel was setting him up with; he generally trusted Gabe’s judgement, and if it really was someone he’d worked with through Blackwatch, Jack could be pretty well assured she was the kind of dangerous badass he liked, and Gabriel had made it clear that he thought she was exactly Jack’s type. So that, perhaps, might not be top on the list of things Jack had to worry about.

He might not be what  _ she  _ wanted, though. An old man with a screeching biological clock and a running demand to  _ make babies now  _ might not exactly be what a woman was expecting when told she was having a blind date with a friend of the Commander of Blackwatch. She might be expecting one of his covert ops agents, some kind of James Bond type with a suave way with words.

Ah, hell. He’d worry about her liking him when he  _ met her. _

Her name, Gabriel had told him, was Amélie Lacroix, and she was Talon’s absolute best sniper - Gabe explained that she ran sniper cover for him and Mei, which meant that she was good enough to keep up with both of them. Gabriel had also mentioned her codename,  _ Widowmaker,  _ and Jack had looked her up through some of the confidential databases Overwatch maintained, which was probably technically misuse of his access - they were not meant for pre-vetting your blind date - and...well. Damn. Her reputation was exactly what Gabriel described - and Jack knew Gabe had seen enough of her in the field to know that it wasn’t inflated. She was credited with covert strikes all over the globe, some of which were Talon ops and some of which she had, apparently, freelanced out for. If her confirmed kills were to be believed, she could genuinely rival Ana for the title of “world’s finest sniper.”

So, yeah.  _ Exactly  _ what he liked.

He took one last look at himself in the mirror, combing his hair a little to make it look less “old man” white and more “distinguished” white. He...hoped. There was only so much he could do with it, after all.

The suit and tie, at least, were sharp and perfectly fitted, because he needed those all the time. Overwatch did a truly absurd number of public events; he had to be at every single one looking as well-put-together as possible, and he was, generally speaking, expected to stay through the entire thing and accept as many congratulations as were offered.

He took a deep breath. This was going to be fine. He was going to be fine. He would meet this woman, decide if he liked her, and go from there. If she wasn’t what he was looking for, so what? She wasn’t his last hope. He would find someone. There were other fish, all that cheesy bullshit.

(He really, really fucking wanted this to work. There weren’t exactly a buffet of options, not at his age; if he was damned lucky, this woman would be everything he wanted. If he was reasonably lucky, she’d be good enough.)

 

* * *

 

Jack was  _ incredibly fucking lucky.  _

That was what he thought as the waiter led him over to the table where his date was waiting. He’d shown up at the time Gabriel had given him, at the place Gabriel had suggested, and informed the waiter that he was meeting Amélie Lacroix, and he was swept off to her table. It was a fairly upscale restaurant, the kind of place with hundred-dollar plates that you needed a hell of a lot of luck and about eight personal connections to get a reservation at - and fortunately Overwatch was long on both luck and connections, and so here they were. 

She was, in a word, gorgeous. The most perfect Omega - most perfect  _ woman -  _ he’d ever laid eyes on, and when she stood up he almost stopped breathing.

She was gorgeous, head to toe, with dark hair teased into graceful waves that fell down her back and bright, honey-gold eyes. Her skin was... _ blue;  _ at first he thought it was a trick of the light, but she extended her hand and he took it, and the contrast between their tones confirmed his initial observation. She was wearing a floor-length leather halter dress that clung to every graceful curve, cut low and highlighting her perfect breasts. The skirt flared out slightly, and there was a translucent cutout of black fabric that drew his eyes down to her legs, of which he could get a teasing glimpse through the fabric. They were, as best he could tell, long and shapely and perfect, and. Hell.

She smelled like  _ heaven.  _ He’d never wanted anything so much as he wanted to shove her skirt up, bend her over the table, and take her  _ right fucking there  _ in the middle of the restaurant. He felt a shiver crawl up his spine as he imagined it, imagined bending her over and having his way with her.

He also felt a burning sensation begin to grow inside him, an absolutely uncontrollable fire of desire. It was, he knew, the beginnings of his rut, brought on just by the  _ sight  _ of this absolutely perfect woman. 

She gave him a slow smile.

“ _ Bonjour,”  _ she said, and the French flowed like water - or like fine wine, perhaps, as a more accurate comparison. He felt like all the breath had been stolen from him, and he was left a little shaky and thrown. No one had ever done anything like  _ this  _ to him; the women he’d been taking to bed to satisfy his ruts had, at best, gotten him interested enough for a quick fuck, but nothing like the absolute  _ need  _ he was experiencing just  _ looking  _ at her. “You must be Jack Morrison.” She sat back down, and he followed, entranced. “The news cameras do not do you justice, Strike-Commander. You are much more... _ visceral  _ in person.”

Distantly, he decided he owed Gabriel something really excellent as a thank you. Maybe a month’s paid vacation. Jesse could run Blackwatch while Gabe and Mei took a second honeymoon, or something. Made a couple more kids. Took the girls on a wild world tour of all the Disney parks. Whatever the hell married couples with kids did.

“ _ Bonjour,” _ Jack said, though his French was a little less graceful than hers. “It’s good to meet you in person, Amélie; Gabriel had a lot to say about you. All of it good.” He swept his eyes over her, blatantly. “He wasn’t exaggerating.” He watched her face as he spoke, and watched a hint of color begin to rise in her cheeks and her pupils begin to dilate. She reached up, almost unconsciously, to brush her hair away from her throat, and it sent a wave of her scent towards him - a very particular, very... _ sweet  _ aroma.

He knew that scent. It was the scent of an Omega going into heat.

He was pretty damn sure he’d never set off  _ that  _ reaction in anyone before. 

It sent a shock through him, a shock that only intensified his blooming rut. He itched to touch her, to  _ have  _ her, but they were still in public and he did his best to think about anything  _ but  _ that.

It was hard, when she was everything he had been waiting for.

“Gabriel had plenty to say about you, as well,” she teased lightly, leaning forward just a little. Her voice seemed a little strained, like she was trying to push off the urgent need she was obviously feeling. 

“None of it complimentary, I’m sure,” Jack huffed. She laughed, and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard. It was almost unfair, how perfect she was, and how much he  _ wanted her. _

“It must have been, or I wouldn’t be here.” She winked. “Now come, Strike-Commander, let us enjoy our meal and get to know each other.”

 

* * *

Whatever her words about enjoying their meal, she forgot them fairly quickly. They tried, really, to stay through the whole thing, and it probably could even have been considered a valiant effort, except that both of them were obviously, viciously distracted the entire time. Their focus was entirely on each other, barely on anything else - and the powerful scents of an Alpha going into rut and an Omega going into heat drew plenty of attention.

Eventually they both gave up on dinner, because it was pretty clearly a lost cause, and Jack offered her the opportunity to come back to his place. 

Her voice was deliciously breathless when she accepted.

He barely waited once he had her in something even resembling private, shoving her against the nearest wall as soon as he shut the door to his apartment behind them and pressing a long, hot kiss to her lips. She moaned, arching against him, grinding her hips against his. He broke briefly to catch his breath, and grinned.

“Look at you,” he growled, “so damn eager. I guess everything I’ve heard about Omegas in heat is true.” She gave him a sly grin, and he was eager to wipe that off her face, to turn her into a ruined mess that couldn’t even  _ think  _ to be coy like this.

“You have not even begun to see,” she said, and then she dragged him in for another kiss. It was a tangle of tongues and moans, sloppy and eager and all heat and need. He began fumbling along the back of her dress for a zipper, and when he found it he yanked it down with little care for whether or not it would survive. He wasn’t thinking about tomorrow, he wasn’t thinking about her leaving - because if his rut-addled brain had its way she would never walk out the door again, and neither would he. 

She shoved off his suit jacket with just as much care as he was treating her dress - none at all - and he began kissing down her neck as she yanked off his tie and began undoing his shirt. His hands trailed over her hips and up to her breasts, squeezing and drawing a moan out of her, and he drew his tongue over the scent gland on her neck - the spot where he would bite down and claim her as his, if she let him. 

There was no question in his mind about  _ that,  _ though _ \-  _ he was going to make this perfect, gorgeous woman his, in every way he possibly could, and she seemed pretty damn eager to let him do it, if her breathy, desperate whines were anything to go by.

“Come on,” he growled once she’d gotten his shirt halfway off. “Bedroom’s in the back.” He didn’t want to take her here, not when he had things nicely prepared, even if fucking her against a wall  _ did  _ sound like an appealing prospect. Perhaps another time. Because there  _ would  _ be another time.

She made a needy little keening noise, and when he began to lead she followed, no prompting necessary. He pushed the door open and she stood in the doorway for a moment, clad in nothing but her obviously-soaked panties, taking in the nest he had created. She was trembling faintly, and he was practically drowning in the scent of her heat.

Once she got her bearings, though, she didn’t waste a moment, stepping out of her panties and tossing them aside and climbing eagerly into the nest. She got on her hands and knees, legs parted, ass in the air and head dropped down, a perfect submissive presentation. It sent a thrill through him, seeing her like that, knowing that she wanted nothing more than for him to have _ her _ .

“Come on, Alpha,” she purred, casting a coy grin in his direction over her shoulder, “come and claim what’s yours.”

He felt his breath leave his body again, for a brief moment, and then everything caught up and he tossed off his shirt and threw aside his belt, practically climbing out of his clothes in his eagerness to get to her. She waited, dropping her head to rest it on a pillow in front of her, and the presentation meant that with every breath he was taking in her pure, undiluted scent, and it was driving him absolutely  _ wild  _ with need. 

“ _ Fuck,”  _ he growled, low and harsh, climbing onto the bed and leaning over her. “Fuck, I’m gonna have my way with you until you can’t fucking  _ walk,”  _ he said, “gonna fill you full of cum and make sure you’re carrying my pups.” She moaned, at that, opening her legs wider. “You like that?” 

“ _ Oui,”  _ she gasped, grinding her hips back against him, an incredibly tempting thing. “Yes, I want you to breed me, please,” she gasped a little desperately. All her coy playfulness was gone, replaced by nothing but burning need. This was exactly what he’d wanted to see; she was more perfect than he could have imagined, and all he wanted was to pound her into the mattress.

He could have taken his time, he supposed, but neither of them had the presence of mind for that. He sheathed in her with one quick stroke, and she moaned, thrusting back against him with clear, blatant desperation. He twisted a hand in her hair, pulling it out of the way so he could lean over and bury his face in her neck, taking in her scent and groaning as he did.

No Omega he’d ever been with before could even begin to compare to this. None of those sad little quick fucks hed had to satisfy his rut came anywhere close. He couldn’t imagine ever being with anyone else again; there was nothing, he was sure, that could even  _ begin  _ to make him feel the way that Amélie did. She was...everything he could have wanted, and  _ she  _ wanted  _ him  _ just as much.

He fucked into her in earnest, not bothering with a slow start or with easing her into it, just pounding into her and eliciting beautifully desperate moans and cries.

“God, you’re so fucking good,” he growled, “so tight and good for me, this is  _ exactly  _ what an Omega like you is  _ made  _ for, to take Alpha cock like the good little bitch you are, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Alpha,” she said, and the way she said it sent a thrill through him. “Yes, this is exactly it, please, more,” she begged, and he eagerly complied, slamming into her and pressing kisses up and down her spine. It was a hard, eager fuck; he’d make time for slow and sensual when he wasn’t riding the high of his rut and her heat, maybe, or maybe he would gladly always have her this way, bent over and crying out, a perfect litany of “yes,  _ please,  _ more,  _ yes, Jack.”  _

The way she moaned his name  _ did things  _ to him, sending sparks up his spine. He could feel his knot beginning to form, ready to lock him inside her.

“Do you want my knot?” He growled against her ear. “I bet you do, I bet that’s what you want most out of this, to have my knot in you and my cum filling you up.”

“I do,” Amélie said, “please, knot me, I need it,” she begged, the picture of beautiful desperation. “I need you to fill me up,  _ s'il vous plaît.  _ Breed me,  _ please.  _ I need it!”

That was exactly what his Alpha instincts had been wanting. He wanted to claim and fuck and breed, to finally bring pups into the world, the way he was  _ supposed to.  _ He was an  _ Alpha,  _ and this was  _ his Omega,  _ and he was going to make damned sure the whole world knew it.

He sheathe fully in her one last time, feeling his knot swell up to lock them together as he began to spill cum hot and thick, and he leaned down to scrape his teeth over her scent gland - not a bite, not just yet, but a tease, and an offer.

“Please,” she gasped, “mark me,” and that undid what little resolve he had; he sank his teeth in, and she screamed underneath him, and he felt her squeeze around him as she climaxed, milking his cock for the rest of his cum. Her entire body was trembling when they both collapsed onto the sheets, and he rolled onto his side so she could settle comfortably against him while they waited for his knot to deflate. Both of them were breathing hard, and Jack couldn’t keep the grin off his face. He leaned up to see that she was smiling too, resting a hand on her stomach.

“How long do you expect us to remain tied?” She asked, casually, like she was just making conversation.

“Might be a while,” Jack said. She hummed.

“Mm, good. I like how this feels,” she said, settling against him and closing her eyes.

That night, Jack fell asleep with Amélie in his arms, and it was the best sleep he’d had in  _ months.  _

 

* * *

Looking at Amélie and their son curled up in a soft, comfortable nest, Jack felt his heart swell.

It had been almost ten months - ten wild, whirlwind months with the most beautiful Omega he had ever met, who had demonstrated that she was more than just an absolutely gorgeous face. She’d kept up with him no trouble on every level, and that was, Jack knew, just further proof that she was exactly the woman he’d always needed. She hadn’t even blinked when they’d discovered she was pregnant, and she’d gone through the entire pregnancy with grace and dignity and looked fucking  _ gorgeous  _ doing it. 

He’d let himself change a little as well - it was remarkable, what mating with Amélie had done for making him  _ feel  _ younger, and so he’d decided he ought to  _ look  _ it as well. He’d started dyeing his hair back to blonde and grown it out, and even cultivated a mustache that Amélie could be grudgingly convinced to call  _ charming.  _

Jack understood, now, why his friends were so proud of their families. Looking at Amélie and their baby boy, it was hard to feel anything  _ but  _ pride. These two were everything he had wanted, the family that he could raise now that he was no longer fighting on the front lines.

It had been a slow transition to a less active role -- he was still, officially, the Strike-Commander, but a desire to spend more time with his pregnant mate and their child had led him to reduce his duties. Fareeha was taking over them admirably, since her mother and father had stepped down as well to live out a peaceful retirement in the German countryside.

Jack longed to take his job back, though; once little John Jr. was older, Jack was confident he and Amélie would both be able to return to working in the field. There was still a need for Overwatch, because there would  _ always  _ be a need for Overwatch. They would never stop serving. 

He slid into the nest with her, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, and Amélie gave him a warm smile. 

“Comfortable, Jack?” She asked, settling into his arms and carefully adjusting her grip on their son.

“Now I am,” he replied. “How are you and Junior doing?” He’d taken to calling his son that, though Amélie preferred the French pronunciation  _ Jean,  _ and he found that rather endlessly charming. 

He found most everything about her either charming or hot, depending on what it was, really.

“We are fine,” Amélie replied. “Much better now, I think.”

Yes, this was it - exactly what he’d always wanted. Exactly what  _ anyone,  _ in his opinion, ought to want. The family he’d needed.

This, he felt, was what happiness was really meant to be.


End file.
